Being responsible for a significant proportion of total heat loss in façade dominated buildings, the design and specification of the envelope, particularly the building's glazing system, is a key factor in determining overall energy consumption.
It is estimated that 45.85% of building's energy can be saved by changing the zones temperature set point, modification in lighting system and building's glazing for daylight optimization and minimizing solar heat gain.
Meanwhile, significance of four different structural parameters (namely the shape coefficient, building orientation, glazing ratio of the south wall and the interior wall structure) respectively on the energy consumption and thermal comfort is obtained by the variance analysis.
However, in small over-glazed buildings, the glazed envelopes often lead to an inadequate comfort level in summer, when much cooling energy is needed to improve the comfort level and occupants are forced to avoid the use of glazed envelopes.
Now all that is needed is some way of getting through the sealed windows with which most tall building are glazed.
Foreseen is the deep energy refurbishment aimed to reach the "total building performance optimization" encompassing multifunctional optimization of building's skin – glazing replacement with the semi-transparent PV glazing and day-lighting control with reference to the artifact preservation, as well as the IEQ (Indoor Environment Quality) control analysis.
At the time of writing this paper, the first real building with FB720 glazing in its façade had been completed (Fig. 12).
The four measures selected for uplifting the energy performance of the building envelope include glazing type, window-to-wall ratio, sun shading and roof strategies.
A model to produce multiple photons from a single one by ultrarelativistic proton-proton collision within a heavy duty silicon PV panel, which is actually part of a building's exterior glazing wall, has been proposed.
The importance of building large-size glazing into timber structures has significantly grown over the last decade due to the enhanced physical characteristics of glass panels and owing to the fact that proper integration of both materials, timber and glass, has a positive impact on the energy efficiency of buildings, which was one of the major reasons for carrying out our investigation.
